


Big Bangs and Primary Colours

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [34]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-06-30
Packaged: 2017-12-16 16:09:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s Bonfire Night in the Lake District and Ryan is visiting his daughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Big Bangs and Primary Colours

“Daddy!” The excited shriek echoed round the courtyard and ricocheted between the grey stone buildings like the sound of tracer fire.

Ryan lifted his daughter up in his arms, swung her around and then perched her on his hip. “You’re too heavy for this!” he protested, kissing her and ruffling the windswept blonde hair.

“Am not!” Vicky Thornton protested. “Tell him, Stephen!” she ordered, offering her cheek to her father’s lover for the expected kiss.

Stephen obliged, laughing, “What makes you think he listens to me, Munchkin?”

“Mummy says so,” announced Vicky.

Stephen and Ryan traded grins, but wisely refrained from comment.

The back door of Tarnthwaite opened and Ryan’s ex-wife, Amanda Thornton appeared, wearing an blue and white striped apron liberally covered with flour. Her hair, blonde like her daughter’s, was tied back in a loose pony-tail from which white coated wisps were already escaping.

“Would someone remind me why I decided to make apple pies for a horde of ravening children?” she asked, giving both Ryan and Stephen pecks on the cheek, whilst trying to avoid covering them both in white powder. “You two made good time on the motorway.”

“We’d have been sooner if Hart hadn’t kept demanding pee stops,” said Ryan, returning the kiss.

His daughter giggled. “Mummy says you’re awful on a journey.” She turned clear blue eyes onto Stephen and enquired, “Do you want the toilet again? Come on, I’ll show you my new posters …” and with that, she scrambled down from her father, grabbed Stephen’s hand and towed him off towards the house.

Amanda’s husband, Greg, came out of the cottage on the other side of the courtyard which served as additional guest accommodation for the main house. He held his hand out to Ryan and the soldier grasped it firmly. The two men were united in their love for Vicky, and Greg had won Ryan’s respect when he had proved to be an unexpected ally in Ryan’s fight to become accepted as a part of his growing daughter’s life.

“We thought you might want a bit of privacy for the weekend,” said Greg, “and Trouble’s got a few of her friends sleeping over in the house. It resembles a refugee camp already and they haven’t even arrived yet.”

“Is there anything we can do?” offered Ryan.

“Relax and grab a beer. You can help me keep the kids out of the kitchen when they start to arrive. We’re going to light the bonfire at seven, and the little horrors should start to arrive at six, so you’ve got an hour or so to recover from the drive.”

Amanda Thornton nodded her approval of this plan, then said, hesitantly, “Thanks for coming, Tom. It means a lot to Vicky, and you really are both welcome here, you do know that, don’t you?”

Ryan smiled, feeling the slight tension that had settled on his shoulders during the long drive start to disappear. “Thank you for asking us ….. we both appreciate it, we really do.”

During those two dreadful days that their daughter had been lost, Amanda had seen and experienced at first hand the dangers her ex-husband worked with on a daily basis, and she’d also witnessed his devotion to the child he’d been separated from for four years, at her insistence. When her father and stepfather had brought Vicky back through a rift in time, old enmity had been swept away in a tide of relief. And then for the next ten days, she had helped to support Ryan when he had believed Stephen Hart to have been lost on the other side of an anomaly, after he’d help to save Vicky, her teacher and a group of her school friends.

He and Amanda were still finding their feet in what was, to all intents and purposes, a new relationship, but both of them were determined to make it work this time, for the sake of the daughter they’d so nearly lost.

“Let’s get your bags in,” said Greg, smiling, “then we’d better rescue Stephen. Knowing Vicky, she’ll still be yelling at him through the loo door.”

Together the two men grabbed the bags from the car, including some packages that were clearly intended for Vicky, and carried everything into the cottage.

“There’s beer and wine in the fridge,” Amanda called over her shoulder as she headed back to her own kitchen, “and a few snacks, if you’re peckish. Greg’s in charge of the barbeque, so I’d stock up first, if I were you!”

“Women just don’t seem to accept that barbequing is a man’s job,” commented her husband, heading straight for the fridge, with Ryan in hot pursuit.

An hour later, still with a can of beer in one hand, Ryan lounged against a dry stone wall at one end of the yard, watching while Greg raked out the charcoal and proceeded to light the first of three barbeques.

His daughter was already tearing round at high speed followed by what appeared to be an entire pack of children, all yelling at once.

“Room for a little ‘un?” asked Stephen, sidling up to the two men, a six pack of beer swinging from one hand.

“She’s let you out of her sight?” asked Ryan, snagging another beer, without waiting to be asked.

“Only after I’d given six of the little buggers a piggy back around the house,” said Stephen, still flushed and panting. “I thought she had a bloody pony!”

Greg laughed, “She’s got two, actually, but that doesn’t stop her cadging a ride from any passing adult. Just thank your lucky stars she wasn’t wielding a whip.”

“For adult read _mug_ ,” said Ryan, pulling his lover in for a quick, beery kiss. “Are any of the kids the ones who went through the anomaly with her?”

“They all are,” Greg told him. “They need to get together occasionally where they can let off steam and talk about what happened if they want to. And tonight is one of those nights. So don’t panic if you hear the little blighters swopping war stories.”

“How do the other parents feel about it?” asked Stephen, leaning comfortably against Ryan’s shoulder.

“Glad to have their kids back,” said Greg. “Anything else pales into insignificance against the shock of thinking you’ve lost a child. They know you two were involved with getting them back, but don’t worry, it’s a close knit community round here and no-one wants their kids involved in a media frenzy.”

A short while later, Ryan found himself trading easy conversation with Detective Inspector Calum Richards and his wife, while the policeman’s nephew, Declan, organised what looked like a series of relay races across the yard.

It had been a while since Ryan had enjoyed a social occasion as much as he was enjoying this one. The parents were easy company, united by the unspoken bond which came with a shared secret. No one registered surprise or disapproval when he finally gave in to temptation and slid an arm around Stephen’s waist. Half an hour later, he understood why when twelve year old Jamie arrived with both of his fathers in tow.

The bonfire was lit with great ceremony by Vicky at exactly seven o’clock, under the indulgent but watchful eye of Greg. The fireworks had been turned over to Ryan’s control, after Vicky had announced that the ponies had been safely tucked up for the night in a loose box at nearby farm. She’d assured him they had a medley of ‘80s Greatest Hits, blasting out of a portable CD player, to help drown out any noise.

Ryan noted with approval that Greg had done an excellent job of choosing fireworks for their colourful properties, rather than their noise value, although he had succumbed to one enormous tube which fired brightly coloured balls into the air with the explosive force of an 81 mil mortar.

The children ooed and ahhed with delight, shrieking with laughter every time a new conflagration lit the night sky. Ryan noted with amusement that Stephen was as much of a big kid over the bangs and flashes as any of Vicky’s friends, and whenever one of his sparklers fizzled out, he came back and demanded another, on the flimsy pretext that he was going to deliver it to one of the kids.

“Liar,” breathed Ryan, pressing a quick kiss onto his lover’s flushed cheek.

“Give me another one and I’ll pay for it later,” said Stephen, nuzzling Ryan’s ear.

The soldier laughed, and handed over another lit sparkler. “Big bangs and primary colours appeal to the young.” He grinned at Greg, watching as Stephen went back to join the rest of the children behind the safety line, all busily painting lines in the air with light.

The other man laughed. “He’s not the only one! I’ve just had to slap Calum’s thieving hands away from the storage box.”

“We can’t even trust the police? Christ, what’s the bloody world coming to?”

The first phase of the fireworks lasted half an hour exactly, then Amanda handed round hot dogs in finger rolls, dripping with tomato sauce or mustard, while the parents started to queue up at one of the three barbeques, which had been carefully tended by Annie Lowe and her boyfriend, while Greg had been helping with the fireworks.

Ryan cast a hopeful look in his ex-wife’s direction as she brought round a tray loaded with more hot dogs.

“There’s onions in this lot,” Stephen told him, licking his fingers in a distinctly suggestive manner.

“How come he got one before me?” the soldier demanded, in mock outrage. “I’ve been working!”

“To be entirely precise, you’ve been making things go bang, Tom. You know you like that. And don’t try and tell me that Stephen’s the only big kid around here ….”

Ryan laughed and grabbed a second hot dog. “I take it I’m off duty until the finale?”

“Eleven o’clock sharp,” said Amanda with a smile. “And yes, you’re off duty until then. Your only parental responsibilty between now and then is to admire your daughter’s culinary skills and find something nice to say about the little surprise that Vicky and her friends have cooked up for you all.”

“Cakes?” said Ryan, hopefully.

Amanda laughed. “You should be so lucky! No. Something a little meatier than that …. You could try asking Greg, he’s had a hand in this ….”

Ryan raised his eyebrows questioningly.

Greg waved a hand at the serried rows of metal skewers which he had been turning on one of the grills for the past half an hour or more.

“Looks like chicken kebabs,” said Stephen, leaning down for a sniff. “Have the kids made these themselves?”

Greg Thornton nodded, trying and failing to stifle a grin. “They spent all yesterday afternoon preparing the meat. It’s been marinated in herbs they picked themselves. Annie took them out on a nature walk in the morning.”

“It was less eventful than the last one,” remarked Annie Lowe, appearing out of the darkness, her around round the waist of her grinning boyfriend. “But I’m taking no responsibility for the finished product. Although I rather suspect Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall would be proud of the lot of them.”

“I’ve never been more thankful that I’m vegetarian,” sighed Amanda. “Veggie burger anyone?”

“Ok, so what’s the catch?” asked Ryan, suspiciously.

A minute later, his daughter thrust a paper plate into his hand and told him to get in the queue for what sounded like _Troody-babs_.

“There’s a kid in your class called Trudy, and you’ve killed her and cooked her?” Stephen hazarded, looking down at the pale meat, flecked with burnt herbs.

Vicky squealed laughing as Greg muttered, with a grin, “Don’t give the little horror any ideas.”

“Go on, try it!” demanded his step-daughter, brandishing a kebab of her own in the air.

Tentatively, Ryan bit into the first square of meat. It was hot, and tasted like a cross between chicken and pheasant. Gamey, but not unpleasantly so. He’d certainly been served worse at a barbeque.

Stephen followed his example and nibbled a corner of the meat. Raising his eyebrows in surprise, he remarked, “Not bad. Have you lot been practising cooking?”

Vicky smothered a giggle. “Do you like it?”

“I've eaten worse,” acknowledged her father, working his way down the skewer, unable for the life of him to work out why his daughter and her friends found the site of a bunch of adults eating kebabs quite so funny.

“So what is it?” asked Stephen, after pulling the final cube of meat off and eating it. “Ostrich?”

Ten children burst into peals of delighted laughter.

“Crocodile?” hazarded on of the other fathers, equally puzzled.

More laughter.

“They aren’t going to get it!" grinned the lad called Josh, who’d been responsible for dolling out medical supplies during their sojourn in the Cretaceous, on the grounds that his dad was a chemist. “They aren’t, are they?”

“Apparently not,” said Ryan, staring suspiciously at his daughter’s step-father, who was grinning almost as much as the children.

“Shall we tell you?” demanded Becky, an angelic looking eleven year old, who could dress an injured leg almost as competently as Ditzy, as Blade could testify.

“Go on, tell us …” said Stephen, “and then can I have another one?”

Vicky bounced up and down, blonde bunches bobbing round her ears. “It’s _troodon_!. Troody-babs! We told you so!”

Stephen’s eyebrows shot up in amazement. “How on earth did you prize one of the corpses out of Cutter?”

“We didn’t,” said Greg. “One of the little buggers must have scarpered out of the main pack. I found it trying to pick a fight with one of the geese a week later.”

“Daddy shot it!” announced Vicky, proudly. “And I persuaded Mummy to let us keep it in the freezer for tonight! We prepared it all by ourselves, like we did back in the camp! Do you like it? Do you?”

Ryan grinned and swiped another skewer off the barbeque. “It’s lovely, darling. Better than your Uncle Stephen’s cooking, any day.” Ryan met Amanda’s gaze over his daughter’s head, his ex-wife’s eyes shining with both amusement and pride. “What’s for afters?”

“Apple pie. Guaranteed dinosaur free, you’ll be glad to know.”

“Tasted worse,” grinned Stephen. “Want another beer to wash it down?”

“Cool box is empty,” remarked Ryan.

“Don’t panic, there are three more portable fridges in your kitchen. Do the honours, will you and lug ‘em out here?” said Greg.

Back in the cottage, Ryan bent down to check that the fridge he was about to pick up was full, when he heard the sound of a bolt being slid home on the outside door. Turning round, he saw Stephen Hart leaning back against the wall of the darkened hallway, a come hither look in his midnight blue eyes.

“Greg was wrong, there was one full cool box left out there.”

“So no urgency for the supplies?” Ryan allowed heat to bleed into his smile as he covered the distance between himself and his lover in three quick strides.

“No, and Vicky and the rest of the cast of Lord of the Flies are busy bobbing for apples.”

Ryan took Stephen’s face in his hands and captured his lips in a deep and probing kiss, which tasted faintly, but not entirely unpleasantly of _troodon_.

“Have I got dinosaur breath?” said Stephen, opening his eyes wide with feigned innocence. “If you check the back pocket of my jeans, you might just find a hip flask with a rather decent malt. Guaranteed to take away the taste of extinct critter.”

Ryan ran his hands over his lover’s tight arse, finding and fishing out a battered, but serviceable, hip flask. Hart was right, it did contain a decent malt. One of Cutter’s, if Ryan wasn’t mistaken. The soldier swilled the liquor round in his mouth appreciatively, swallowed, then took another mouthful, which he proceeded to share.

Stephen chased the taste of an island malt around Ryan’s mouth with his tongue, at the same time as he undulated his hips, sliding his own growing erection against Ryan’s body and drawing a moan, followed by a sharp intake of breath. A moment later, he was sliding gracefully to his knees, fumbling with the soldier’s zip as he tipped some more of the golden liquid down his throat, enjoying the burn as it hit his stomach. Then he had Ryan’s cock out and he was running his wet tongue along its length, licking and sucking greedily.

Ryan groaned, his head falling back against the wall. Christ, Stephen Hart was good at this, full lips stretching round his swollen head, while his tongue teased the slit, and strong hands tugged his jeans down over his thighs, allowing sinfully skilled fingers better access to his body.

Hands drifted over his thighs, then fingertips ghosted over his arse as all the while, lips, teeth and tongue claimed him for their own. Ryan ran his hands through black hair, breathing quickening as his lover took him all to quickly to the edge of climax and then ….. held him there, while time seemed to freeze and Ryan was conscious of nothing more than lancing spikes of pleasure, and the heat pooling in his belly.

Long fingers tightened round the base of his cock. Ryan gasped, hands sliding down onto Stephen’s shoulders as he tried to bury himself even further down his lover’s throat. Stephen swallowed hard and Ryan felt the contraction along his length, but still his orgasm was being held back.

“Please ….”

Stephen chuckled and the sensation took the soldier even closer to the edge.

Fingers parted Ryan’s arse cheeks, running up and down his cleft, teasing and urging at once. A moment later, Ryan felt one of the long fingers being pushed in alongside his cock, gathering a mixture of saliva and pre-come, before it was buried inside him, twisting, seeking ….

Stars exploded behind Ryan’s eyes with the force of a thousand fireworks.

A second finger followed the first, crooking into him, pressing unerringly at just the right spot. A second sunburst swamped Ryan’s brain and he felt himself falling, down and down, into a maelstrom of kaleidoscope colours. Only his lover’s hands held him upright as he jerked convulsively and came, Stephen’s name falling from his lips over and over again like a litany.

And then lips which tasted of Ryan’s own fluids, mingled with malt whisky, covered his mouth, capturing and swallowing the words, as Stephen chased his own climax …. and reached it, moaning around his lover’s probing tongue.

The two men slid down the wall into a tangled, sweaty heap of loose, trembling limbs, laughing and gasping in turn.

“Need to change my bloody underwear,” muttered Stephen, taking another quick gulp from the hip flask before offering to a panting Ryan.

“Makes a change for you to be wearing any,” Ryan pointed out, with an exhausted grin. “You need to lose the bedroom hair while you’re at it, Hart …”

Stephen laughed, and ran a sticky hand over the offending spikes, contriving to make matters worse, if anything, not better. “Reckon we’ve got time for a shower?”

Ryan shook his head. “We’ll just have to rely on the smell of char-grilled dino to cover for us …. come on, straighten up and grab the beer ….”

A moment later, an insistent hammering started up against the door. “Daddy! Stephen! You’re missing mummy’s apple pie!”

“Coming, darling! called Ryan.

“Never a truer word spoken,” grinned Stephen.


End file.
